My wife and I have attempted, unsuccessfully, to switch our Co-operative Bank accounts to the Nationwide building society. This has proved impossible since the Nationwide IT system, after several attempts, was not able to correctly spell our married name – a common local Highland surname – nor register our postal address, which is a normal, rural address for this area. It had to be within five lines, which the Co-operative Bank had been able to do. It was also evidently necessary to incorporate United Kingdom on the last line which, again, should have proved straightforward.

We have never encountered any problems regarding our name and address from any other financial institution.

We were interviewed at the Nationwide Inverness branch in November. After one and three-quarter hours of fruitless attempts to get our name and address on to the system, the manager was brought in. This did not help matters as his attitude seemed to be that we were causing trouble in his branch. We had to leave after two hours.

We would caution other new customers regarding the Nationwide's IT system, and query whether it was up to the job of adequately handling their accounts. K MacK and R MacK,Dingwall, Ross-shire

We can understand why this was upsetting. We are happy to report that Nationwide has acknowledged its error and has apologised. In a statement it said: "On this occasion an IT glitch caused problems with opening the account. Unfortunately, normal procedure was not followed and the couple should not have been kept in the branch for such a long time. The issue has now been fixed but, in order to progress opening the account, we need them to come back to the branch to complete the application process. As an apology for the inconvenience, and to cover any costs of revisiting the branch, the society will be offering £100."

We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number